


A Study in Red and Black

by tiger_moran



Series: Your Protector [1]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes (Downey films), Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Attempted Murder, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, M/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-09
Updated: 2013-08-09
Packaged: 2017-12-22 22:34:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/918798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiger_moran/pseuds/tiger_moran
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Moriarty has been beaten and captured by a rival criminal gang; Moran tries to get to his professor before they kill him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Study in Red and Black

   He awakens to darkness and sharp flares of crimson pain shooting through his head. A gap in his memory when he tries to remember.  The sound of water dripping. Smell of damp (the docks, he thinks distantly) and the feel of it creeping through his clothing, through his skin. Rotted iron taste of blood in his throat. His hands are bound tightly behind his back in knots he cannot work free, his ankles are tied together. Several of his fingers are almost certainly broken and the red stab of agony in his chest when he moves makes him wonder if he’s cracked a rib or two also.

  _‘How dare they?’_ he thinks, although he cannot quite grasp at present who ‘they’ are. _‘How dare they do this to me?’_

   And then, _‘Moran.’_

   When they come for him again he remembers who they are – John Hawking, who dreamed of rising above the professor and stealing his empire from him, and his lackeys – and he knows that now they mean to kill him. No more playing with their captive professor, just death, and with him so weak and already injured, realistically there is not one single thing that Moriarty can do to stop them by himself.

    “Won’t you beg us to spare you, Professor?” Hawking sneers as they haul him up.

    There is coarse dark fabric tied over his eyes, hindering Moriarty’s ability to glare at him in a manner that appropriately displays his full contempt for such a suggestion. James Moriarty _never_ begs, nor will he pray for salvation, but he is not beyond that very human habit of _hoping_.

 -

    The moonless night is very dark, but Moran’s temper is blacker still.

  _‘How fucking dare they?’_ he thinks. Even his thoughts are snarled out with utter hatred. _‘How fucking dare they think they’re even fit to lick horseshit from the professor’s boots, never mind lay one single finger on him?!’_

   He tracks them through the dark, through winding passages and dingy courtyards, through alleyways and streets where the rare brightness of a flickering gaslight serves only to make the shadows darker still. On and down into the gloom of the warehouses by the docks. A gun at his hip and a blade close to his chest and murder on his mind, and he whispers, “ _James._ ”

    Running stealthily, as silently as he can manage at this speed, with all the fire and the fury of a vengeful tiger tracking his quarry through this urban jungle, until his lungs feel fit to burst.

    “James, please, _hold on_.”

    And then…

 -

     The rope bites into his neck, choking him, igniting the scarlet pain of his head wound anew.

    “Beg us to spare you, Professor,” Hawking says, laughing, as they drag him up, lifting his feet off the ground.

    “Dance for us,” one of the lackeys taunts. “Dance your jig.”

    They jeer and mock him, as if he is nothing, worth less than one of the rats that crawl through the murk and muck.

    “ _No_ ,” Moriarty says, and though his voice is barely more than a pained croak still the tone of it manages somehow to convey his absolute unshakeable sincerity.

  _‘Sebastian_ , _’_ he thinks.

    Bored now, Hawking turns away. “Finish him,” he says.

    He is lifted higher, the rope cutting ever deeper, and everything goes black.

 -

    On his second wind, given new strength and energy by the urgency of the situation, he whirls in like a storm, a thundercloud that delivers death and destruction.

    “Out my _fucking_ way!” he roars.

    Two shots, two clean kills; a third taken out with a blow to the throat with his fist that leaves the man fallen and unable to breathe. No time to toy with them, much as he’d like to make them hurt, to make them pay for this. Onward, downwards, into the dark.

    “Professor!” he screams.

   And everything goes red.

 -

    “Shh, shh, it’s all right, I’ve got you, I’ve got you.” When he cuts him down from the rafters Moran holds him, not too tight because Moriarty’s obviously hurt, but tightly enough to let him know he’s safe. The red marks on the professor’s skin, around his throat and about his wrists where the ropes bit in, make him wince as if he shares the professor’s pain himself. Moriarty’s hair too is clotted with blood, dried to a maroon colour, darker than the fresh blood splattered and sprayed around them like so much spilled claret, flowing out of Hawking and his gang.

    Moriarty clings to him with a desperation that he will later pretend never occurred (Moran, of course, will allow this pretence to go unchallenged) as Moran tenderly removes the blindfold.

    “James,” he says, brushing a bloodstained lock of hair off the professor’s forehead.

    “Sebastian,” Moriarty whispers hoarsely. “I hoped - _knew_ \- that you would come for me.” And as he sinks into Moran’s embrace now everything goes black once more, but a softer, subtler, sable-coloured shade this time.


End file.
